The Palais Garnier (French: [palɛ ɡaʁnje] (listen), Garnier Palace), also known as Opéra Garnier (French: [ɔpeʁa ɡaʁnje] (listen), Garnier Opera), is a 1,979-seat opera house at the Place de l’Opéra in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, France. It was built for the Paris Opera from 1861 to 1875 at the behest of Emperor Napoleon III. Initially referred to as le nouvel Opéra de Paris (the new Paris Opera), it soon became known as the Palais Garnier, “in acknowledgment of its extraordinary opulence” and the architect Charles Garnier’s plans and designs, which are representative of the Napoleon III style. It was the primary theatre of the Paris Opera and its associated Paris Opera Ballet until 1989, when a new opera house, the Opéra Bastille, opened at the Place de la Bastille. The company now uses the Palais Garnier mainly for ballet. The theatre has been a monument historique of France since 1923.
In 1973 the Paris Festival d’Automne and the Paris International Dance Festival commissioned a new work from Merce Cunningham, to be performed by 26 dancers of the Ballet of the Paris Opera, including three etoiles, Wilfride Piollet, Michael Denard, and…
Angelin Preljocaj is interested in the myths of antiquity as well as current events. Medea’s Dream allows him to penetrate inside the soul of a woman, to search for deeply buried desires and to pierce Medea’s unconscious beyond the myth:…
Orpheus and Eurydike is Pina Bausch‘s masterpiece and the ultimate symbol of her choreographic genius. It is here danced by the Ballet de l’Opéra national de Paris. From the outset it had been Gluck’s wish that Orpheus and Eurydike should…
4 years after the announcement of his withdrawal from the artistic scene, the emblematic contemporary choreographer Mats Ek, is back at Palais Garnier! Mats Ek is proposing a new ballet piece, “Another Place”, a 35-minute pas de deux created at…
Invited to make a piece for the ballet of the Paris Opera by her director Brigitte Lefèvre, Jérôme Bel wanted to stage a kind of theatrical documentary on the work of one of the dancers of the ballet: Véronique Doisneau.…
A meeting of painting and dance, Signes is the culmination of a triple creative process initiated by the painter Olivier Debré and continued by choreographer Carolyn Carlson and composer René Aubry. In search of the unspeakable emotions of the sensitive…
